"Birddog?"
"I never heard that name."
"Your agent does know about the C-45?"
"Of course."
"Well, then I suggest you contact your man-he's either Birddog by an-other name, or he knows who Birddog is-and find out if the radar and the other equipment, and the other two guys on the team, will fit on the C-45. If so, have the equipment and the two guys ready to go when I get there. If they won't, that's too bad. We tried."
"I think I would need authorization from Colonel Graham to do that."
"There's not time to ask Graham's permission."
"The ramifications of you being discovered bringing the C-45 in black, with the radar and two agents aboard..."
"There's not time to ask Graham's permission," Clete said. "I'm leaving here at ten o'clock tonight, and there's no way we can get a reply by then."
Delojo shook his head as he considered the ramifications of that.
"OK," Clete said impatiently. "Let's leave it this way: It's your responsibil-ity to get Ashton's team and their equipment into Argentina, and from Santo Tome to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. You worry about that, and I'll worry about getting the C-45 to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo."
"You would fly everybody from Santo Tome to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo? Is that what you're saying?"
Clete nodded.
Delojo exhaled audibly.
"This can't be delayed a couple of days until we coordinate everything with Oracle?" he asked.
"I'm on the ten-o'clock train tonight to Santo Tome," Clete said. "Where's Ashton?"
"At the Automobile Club of Argentina hotel in Santo Tome."
"When you message Oracle, Commander," Clete said, "you can ask him to relay to Graham that I plan to cross into Brazil either tomorrow night or early the next morning."
"What makes you think I'm going to message Oracle?"
"Unless I've misread you completely, Commander, as soon as you get to the Embassy, you are going to radio Oracle all of this, so that if Oracle doesn't 'authorize' what I'm planning on doing, there will be time for him to have the whole operation stopped by the time I get to Porto Alegre."
"That would not be necessary, Major Frade, if you were willing to delay your operation for seventy-two hours," Delojo said. "We could have authoriza-tion, or denial of authorization, within that period."
"I don't have seventy-two hours," Clete said. "Have you got anything else for me?"
"I think that's all," Delojo said. "I suggest that when you meet with Ashton you make it clear to him that the pickup of his two men and the radar at Porto Alegre is a tentative plan."
"In case you can't make contact with him before I do, you mean?"
"I really don't understand you at all, Frade," Delojo said.
"Stay behind a minute, will you, Tony?" Clete said, adding to Delojo, "I mean just a minute, Commander. You can wait for him."
He went to the door and held it open for Delojo, then closed it after he had gone through.
"What the hell was that all about?" Tony asked.
"He would have liked to stand me at attention and order me to do what he thinks should be done, but he's not sure he has the authority."
"I picked up on the way he kept calling you 'Major.'"